The present disclosure relates to patient support apparatuses such as hospital beds, for example. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to patient support apparatuses having mattress support decks with sections that are moved by actuators.
Patient support apparatuses such as hospital beds, stretchers, wheelchairs, surgical tables, and the like oftentimes have mattress support decks with movable sections. Actuators or motors, such as linear actuators or hydraulic cylinders, are used to move the movable sections of mattress support decks on many prior art patient support apparatuses. In some instances, it is not desirable for patients to be moved in a particular manner while resting on a patient support apparatus. For example, after abdominal surgery there may be a period of time when a patient should remain in a supine position and not moved to a sitting up position.
Some prior art patient support apparatus have user inputs that are used to lock out the use of the actuators. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,279,183; 6,226,816; 6,208,250; 5,771,511 and 4,044,286. In the prior art patient support apparatuses, the actuators for articulating the sections of a mattress support deck are only able to be locked out individually via use of lock out inputs dedicated to the individual actuators. However, in some instances, such as with regard to a pair of actuators of an elevation system of a patient support apparatus, multiple actuators on the patient support apparatus may be locked out together but these are typically not the actuators associated with deck articulation.